Tag Archives: military

Home Guard or Civil Defence Force?

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A new home guard will be established to protect key British infrastructure from attacks by hostile states and terrorists , under plans reportedly put forward in a major defence review. The Independent Sunday 18 May 2025

Less than a year after the issue of whether or not conscription was under consideration by a Conservative government surfaced during the early days of the 2024 general election, we now have a Labour Prime Minister presiding over a defence review that apparently wants to revive a part-time volunteer army. Whatever happened to The Territorials and their companion volunteer reserve forces in the other armed services?

We will have to await the full Defence Review to understand what is in the minds of those charged with the defence of the ream in the 21st century. At a time when there are more teachers in training than the whole establishment of the Royal Navy, (a factoid that never ceases to amaze me), something clearly has to be done about staffing our defence forces.

With the armed services no doubt open to pressure to reduce their numbers of Commonwealth recruits, a group that don’t often receive a mention in the debate about immigration, a review is obviously necessary if we need more people in our defence forces. Incidentally, I saw a post on LinkedIn recently that suggested there were days when the recruiting offices across the whole of Scotland only managed to recruit one person a day into all arms of the forces.

Will the Review consider the issue of cadet forces for young people. The remnants of these units are now rather haphazardly spread across the country, although the private schools have still, at least in the boys’ school sector, managed to retain many of their Combined Cadet Forces.

The CCF also used to be a feature in the State secondary school sector, at least in selective schools, but largely disappeared in the early 1960s, around the time that conscription was abolished. I recall that the school I attended has such a Force in 1958, when I joined the school, but by the time I reached the possible age to join, it had been disbanded.

Will an expansion of such forces be part of the proposals, or will the needs be just for adult volunteers. And what about the Royal Observer Corps – will that again feature as a part of the volunteer defence force?

Personally, I think a civil defence force that has wider uses than just preparing for a war is a more attractive proposition to sell to the general public. Afterall, even if saboteurs were to play an important part in the scheme of things, we already have the Civil Nuclear Police force to guard our high-risk power stations – and, incidentally, they are the only police force where all officers are trained and can carry firearms on a regular basis.

A civil defence force could help in times of national emergencies, such as floods, fires and other times of high risk – where increasingly firefighters are already a mixture of full-time professional and part-time retained officers, such as those that tragically lost their lives last week at the Bicester Motion conflagration –.

You only have to think of the fire bombs of the animal extremists that were inserted into clothing in shops to know how recruiting soldiers to stamp around outside possible targets is little more than gesture defending.

I will wait with interest, to see what actually the government will be proposing.  


Military Matters

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Today, as well as attending the Two Minutes Silence and wreath laying ceremony at County Hall, I also attended some training about the role of the Military Covenant and Military Champions in local government. During the training, Education emerged as a key concern for many service families. Despite the almost complete removal of our forces from family accompanied postings in mainland Europe, many service families are still expected to move location to a new posting, possibly as frequently as every two years.

These moves can play havoc with children’s schooling. Of particular concern, in this age of academies, is the lack of the same degree of oversight of in-year admissions as for the September round of admissions. Indeed, most academies act as their own admission authority for in-year admissions. Most moves within the services do not conform to the school year for obvious operational reasons.

One person said at the training ‘well, if one pupil moves out and another moves in, what is the issue?’ For many in education the answer is obvious in terms of the ages of the children and the schools that they might attend. Unit moves where only the local primary school is affected are now something of a rarity, and even then the ‘march out’ and arrival of the in-coming unit might not coincide. Differing numbers might mean that the school might not immediately receive the appropriate level of funding, depending upon when the move takes place.

One solution would be to return oversight of in-year admissions, at least for service children, to local authorities, with the power to direct academies to admit pupils arriving mid-year. Another person at the training told a story of a senior officer being told there was no place for his son at a secondary school while overhearing the person on the other end of the phone say to someone that the school didn’t want any more service children on roll: how disheartening.

I know that children of service personnel are eligible for the Service Children Premium, but the amount hasn’t been increased and is, therefore, of less value than when introduced, and it is not clear how the spending is monitored.

There are also stories of children being denied free transport to school because they arrived mid-year. I wonder about the legality of such a move by any  local authority, and whether any authority has put such a clause in their Home to School Transport Policy? I also wonder whether service children posted into areas such as Kent and Essex where there is selective education receive a fair deal over access to grammar schools. Indeed, do other children moving mid-year because a parent has been relocated by their employer also suffer if they arrive into selective systems?

One final military gripe is the difference in funding between Cadet Units and Combined Cadet Force Units. The former are community based and the latter school based. However, that should not affect the level of funding each receives for the same tasks.

These are all issued for the new government after the general election.